Making Japanese Tempura

Making Japanese Tempura at home caught without embarrassment

Making Japanese Tempura at home caught without embarrassment. Tempura is a typical dish of Japanese cuisine. The traditional dish is made from fried fish and vegetables in batter. You may not know that the word tempura is not a term Japanese and Latin and is associated with the Christian tradition.

Tempura according to tradition has emerged thanks to the first contacts between Japanese, Portuguese sailors and Christian missionaries. Christians abstained from eating meat for three days at the beginning of each season. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays they ate only fish and vegetables. These periods were called Tempora and from here is born the word tempura. It could say that the word derives from the Portuguese tempura, tempero, which means spice.

The original recipe of Japanese tempura
According to the original Japanese recipe dough is made with only two ingredients are rice flour and very cold water / soda /. To get a good Japanese tempura, you will need:
100 g cold water, preferably carbonated
100 g rice flour
You’ll have to knead the ingredients quickly with Japanese chopsticks. If kneading remain small lumps it is irrelevant as this will help to tempura to become crispy. Then the dough is stored in a refrigerator of 15 to 30 minutes. Tempura should always be fresh and dry. You may have noticed that the original version of Japanese tempura batter is vegan and gluten-free as it is made from rice flour and contains no animal ingredients – even eggs.

The best vegetables for your tempura

Among the best vegetables to prepare tempura rank zucchini, pumpkin flowers, carrots, green beans, peppers, cut into strips, eggplant strips, broccoli and cauliflower, separated into florets, asparagus, pumpkin, cut into sticks, and if you want to experiment, try salvia.

Secrets to prepare crispy tempura

Let’s see what are the secrets to cook perfect crispy and light tempura. You must be especially careful to temperatures in the preparation of ingredients.
1) Oil temperature
Japanese tempura. To find out whether the oil is ready for frying, just drop a small amount of dough, and if it sinks, then emerged – oil temperature is good;

Various options for making Japanese Tempura home to vegetables and fish can become crispy and delicious

2) Use cold ingredients from the fridge
Ingredients that are essential for your tempura such as vegetables, you will need to remove straight from the fridge. With the hot and cold oil ingredients need to generate a thermal shock in order to obtain a crispy tempura.

For this reason it is recommended to cool for at least 15 minutes the dough in the refrigerator before using it;
3) Option Dough
If classical Japanese recipe for dough made with flour and water is not satisfactory, you may experience more conventional way: 1 egg yolk, 100 g of flour, 100 ml of cold water and 1 pinch of salt.
Another variation of the original recipe of Japanese tempura is replacing soda with beer and chickpea flour instead of rice flour;
4) Use of sesame oil
Traditional oil used in Japan to make tempura is a sesame oil, which is one of the secrets to its characteristic taste. Some use sunflower or soybean oil for frying tempura, but if you want to fully comply with the rules of Japanese cuisine should give priority to the sesame oil. Sesame oil is a vegetable oil extracted from sesame, and contains a powerful antioxidant – sezamol.